Mocambo Hotel Nadi

... much more backpacker friendly and was filled with people our age doing the same trip we're doing. It's an ecohaven resort, meaning it's run by the local village and all profits are shared by the villagers. We visited the beautiful sandbar that connects the small and big islands and took a trip to the local school. Check out our "Pictures of the Post" - you'll see my new friend Alesi, who introduced himself straight away, grabbed hold of my ...

Today we went to a secondary school that had students from age 14 to 20. It was our first time adjusting outside, but still with a roof over our heads. It was actually nice because we were out of the sun and had a very nice breeze going through the whole day. The kids at this school all like to laugh at each other as they are being adjusted, wish I know Fijian, so I could understand what they were saying to ...

<br> Bula!<br> <br><br> <br><br> Welcome to Fiji; Island of the Gods. The first thing that strikes you when you get off the plane in Nadi is the heat. The beautiful, suffocating heat. Goodbye jumpers, goodbye coats, goodbye woolly socks! Just the old SE Asian favourites of shorts and a T-shirt. I felt a bead of sweat on my forehead and found myself saying; 'hello there little fella, it's been a long time. How you been doing?'. Turned out he'd been doing just fine. But he ...

... When we arrived at South Sea, they sang to us. Fijians sing a lot. Chilled out on the beach - really good deck chairs!. Watched a beautiful sunset. Had good food, went to sleep. Today, we went on the Seaspray Boat trip that was going to take us to Modriki Island - the island where Castaway was filmed. There was unlimited food and drink on the boat - AWESOME! We stopped off at an island to visit a village. We did a kava ceremony - it tastes like muddy water - nice....Then we ...

... which Laura and I won! Woo! The evenings on the islands generally didn't go on to late, think the latest we managed was 1am but usually bed time was around 10pm! I mean, we were so busy during the day - laying in hammocks, eating, playing cards, snorkeling, eating, sunbathing and a bit more eating by the evenings we were shattered!! Haha. On some of the islands the staff put on entertainment during the evening, lots of singing, dancing and fire shows ...

... on the beach for a while before turning in for bed. <br><br>The next morning, I went to Sawailau Caves with a few of the boys from the resorts. (The girls just wanted to fry in the sun...) After a short boat trip, we arrived at the caves &amp; entered the first cavern. After swimming around for a while, our guide had us dive under the water to swim into the second cavern, which had no daylight entering so was pitch black. Thankfully our guide had a torch so we swam through there for ...

... in the country by the way--is very small and simple. after stopping by the travel desk and sorting out my transport, i waited with about 100 other people for our so-called "rides" to come. most of them consisting of beat-up vans with some sort of faded decal of the hostel's logo stuck on the side of the driver's side door. i have to admit i was a bit nervous that i had just signed up for something less than i was expecting... but my ride came and myself and about 6 ...

... so we just slept for the afternoon and did just a bit of study for the next morning's dive before dinner. That night we had a few drinks and the resort put on a Polynesian night which consisted of some locals doing some traditional dance for us. The grand finale was a fire dance and it was amazing. The following morning we were to go on our deep dive. Once we'd done our knowledge reviews with Christine (our instructor) and had a dive briefing we headed out to ...

... tourist' hat on and you realise what a passionate and fascinating people they are. Their sincerity and optimism in the face of what remains their very turbulent homeland is inspiring. 3) Go snorkelling over the coral reef. This was my Fijian highlight, after being unceremoniously dumped in the water by the local guides, who then promptly sped off several hundred feet away into the distance, I was lucky enough to paddle my way through ...

... 5.30pm, so it's not yet business as usual. Tourism seems to be hit hard too. The place where we stayed in Kortogo hardly had any other guests. (We were upgraded to a nice villa overlooking the sea partly because of that). Finally, I should mention about my interaction with the Indo-Fijians during our stay in Fiji. To give you a history lesson on that topic - Fiji has a sizable Indian community that at one point exceeded the ...